Laced With Confusion
by queen of indie Harlequinn
Summary: On the cusp of innocence and the unknown, the newly graduated legendary four find themselves transformed and inextricably intertwined. Are the seams of their idyllic past still sewn together, or will the frayed ends of their youth split them apart?


"Hey, Rizzo! Get off of that thang, you got a _condition_!" Kenickie's unmistakable _New Yawk _drawl echoed obnoxiously throughout the schoolyard-cum-carnival, and Rizzo felt an old familiar warmth well up inside of her like some secret inner glow. "Forget it!" she yelled down to him, feeling giddy like a child. "It was a false alarm!"

"What?" Kenickie's dumbfounded question resounded across the blue sky miles of the day, stirring a feeling of nostalgia in the pit of Rizzo's stomach. Typical Kenickie. He was about as hard of hearing as one of those ninety-year old geezers who set up these overblown graduation things, anyway.

She smiled down at him from the top of the ferris wheel and then all at once she couldn't help it: She screamed, "I'm not pregnant!" at the top of her lungs, uncaring as to who else below her would here. It was funny what happened at the tail end of her high school years, she mused. She found herself shedding old cares like snakeskin like snakeskin and shouting gleefully into the blue skiy miles between herself and the ground.

She was rewarded with whoops of delight from an equally ecstatic Kenickie below. God, he was a beautiful specimen of a man if there ever was one. Today especially it seemed that all his unique, boyish quirks- as well as the more subtle, distinguished traces of manhood she had uncovered as time went on- glowed around him in a haze of sun. Her mind flashed back like lightning- _Greased Lightning_, if you will- to the unexpected sweetness that had bloomed from that clumsy first time in the car. She knew she was thinking like one of those sentimental drones she'd always loathed at good ol' Rydell, but she truly could not believe only mere months had passed her by since she'd first stumbled into her relationship with Kenickie. She felt inexplicably older than she had been all those months ago when he stood brazenly before her and opened the door to his car, drawing her in with a line that was actually plain pitiful. _'Your chariot, my lady', _and right after the wound of Danny's nasty dismissal of her charms had swelled up yet again.

But there was something about Kenickie that endeared her to him at the time, maybe always had. He eminated a bright-eyed energy that was at once childlike and gruff...and his eyes smoldered in a different way than Zuko's had when they roved over her body and then met her eyes in a playful challenge. She'd been suprised the freakin' door of his damned car didn't fall off right there and crush her foot when he opened it for her to get in. 'Greased Lightning', as he'd confessed to her later was the official name of that damned lemon. She smiled wryly now as the ferris wheel descended and Frenchy's girlish laughter floated up toward the cotton candy clouds in the sky. But a blue note of sadness tinged the air as she realized the era of their youth was slipping through their fingers with each moment that passed by today.

Still, her tongue-in-cheek smile burst into a full-out grin as a kaliedoscope of memories came full circle in her mind, most of them centered around the whooping idiot waiting for her at the bottom of the ferris wheel. _Greased Lightning _would go down in history, alright. The things a man will tell ya when he's tied up naked in the trunk of a tin can at the drive-in!

Slowly the ferris wheel descended, and the girls were still laughing like children when their car came to a stop at the bottom. Rizzo couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something ethereal about this last day of their high school years that illuminated everyone in the vivid light of the sun. All of her friends seemed even more themselves in the candied carnival air, and she tried not to think that the green miles behind them were already slipping between their fingers. She had the sudden, startling sensation that life as she knew it was spinning forward too fast, but then she felt her feet planted firmly on the ground and Kenickie's arms locked around her waist. Frenchy shrieked in delight at the sight of their reunition and scampered off into the blaze of colors in the crowd, her polka dot dress billowing in the wind.

"I'll, uh, make an honest woman of ya", Kenickie smiled down at the girl he had loved since childhood, maybe even before that if it was possible. A well of emotion churned up darkly to the surface of him, nearly spilling over when he realized that somewhere along the way she had transformed in his arms from a sassy, smart ass girl to an understated, refined woman. Kenickie was far from the type to be caught bawling over some chick- at a freakin' carnival, no less- but Rizzo was simply of a different specimen than any other female he had known in his life. He stared down at her in awe and grinned widely, illiciting one of her damned sexy eye rolls she knew would get him goin' right here in the middle of a kiddie carnival.

Only he knew that later, when the bright lights died down and the turn of their lives began in earnest, the salt of his tears would stream in dark rivers onto her cheeks and she would catch them when they fell. It would be a private moment that transpired solely between the two of them- not like Danny and Sandy's sickening displays of gushing sweetness before the whole damn school. Well, that was before they broke up for the hundredth time this year. Surprise, surprise- it was over her bein' an uptight ass broad with a stick up her prissy ass. What else was new?

Nah, who was he kiddin' these days? Times had changed; Danny, who was secretly more like a brother to him than a friend, had sold out and got himself pussy whipped. Kenickie had even grown to love Sandy like a sort of sister over the months that she'd been puttin' his oldest boy through the ringer.

For a fleeting moment a disturbing image sifted through his mind as he remembered one particularly hot afternoon last week when he'd been plastered on Danny's couch. Danny had was concerned in a brotherly way, of course, but had seemed to label him a lost cause by the second week of his apparent incapacitation. _Look, man, I wanna level with you 'bout this whole thing, _he had said to him one night after Sandy had gone home for supper and they were alone at last.

_ We've been friends a long time, and I had no problem pretending you were out cold so I could race Grased Lightning for you. I knew you were all messed up over Rizzo and the kid, and man, who wouldn't be? But you gotta level with me here, man, alright? This is your life. And I know you care about her, Kenickie, but Rizzo...she's just Riz. And this is your life. Go hit the shower an' we'll all head go out like old times, alright? You, me, and the rest of the guys. Come on, Kenick._

Danny's words had floated in one ear and out the other as he jettisoned toward the bathroom like there were flames lit up under his ass or somethin'. And truly, he had fallen into his own kind of purgatorial hell without Rizzo- and with a possible kid on the way, growing in her stomach...

When he'd emerged from the bathroom looking like a corpse, Sandy had leveled him with one of those wide-eyed stares that had an eerie way of seeing right through him. Her blond waves grazed the teacup shoulders of her blouse, and a distant look misted over her eyes as the corners of her pert little mouth set in a frown. Yeah, okay, she was attractive in her own roundabout way and she was concerned for him. But really she wasn't even alive in his eyes that saw no one but his pregnant ex-girlfriend. _Rizzo. _Rizzo, who had probably would've forgotten he existed if not for the kid of uncertain origin in her stomach...

Kenickie had almost puked again but then Sandy was beside him, all mother hen-like. And a curious thing had transpired between them: Her presence alone was enough to smooth over the churned up miles of him for a fleeting reprieve of a moment.

She said,_ Now, you and I both know that Danny is your best friend and he's doing his best to help. But you and I also both know that he doesn't know what on earth he's doing when it comes to giving advice. I truly believe that Rizzo loves you in the same way you love her, and love in its purest form has no bounds. I know her more than you think I do. She looked so sad on the day of Thunder Road, standing all alone in the crowd with her books clutched to her chest. Why, she even responded in kind when I said something nice to her. You should have been there, Kenickie, really. I've never seen her in that state and I honestly don't know that you have, either._

The nightmare of those last few weeks finally melted like molasses to the green earth beneath his feet as Rizzo cracked a smile in his arms. He laughed inwardly as she freed herself from his tight-walled grasp and muttered, "If this is a line, fella, I ain't bitin'."

"This is a bona fide offer", he assured her. His fiery gaze was fierce as hell and seemed to lock her feet safe on the ground. And yet she still swayed in his arms, her world teetering off balance before he caught her, wrapping her up the home of his arms once more. The blaze of his eyes were so intense sometimes, like the serrated edge of a knife that cut straight through to the hidden heart of her. Rizzo's aminal attraction to him had always been too consuming for her comfort, licking like flames at the steel edges of her bland composure, and today was no exception. There was a deep, insatiable well of hunger and something elseyet unnamed in his eyes. Spmething that sent cold prickles down her spine and caused goosebumps to rise along the surface of her skin, which suddenly felt too thin.

"Well, it ain't moonlight and roses, but..." she mumbled to break the tension budding between them, pressing her herself into him once more. And then all at once the buzz of fading colors around them disappeared completely. Time seemed to eclipse in the moment that his mouth came down on hers, reclaiming what he thought had been lost to him for the most miserable three weeks of his life. Kenickie knew it would make Rizzo afraid if she knew the comatose state he'd been in over the prospect of losing her and possibly their child. So he kept the violently ill memory of his past three weeks to himself.

Only Danny knew what a sad, ragged shell of himself he'd become in the weeks he'd been deprived of her. Oh, and probably Sandy, because what the fuck did the two of them keep to themselves anymore, anyway? Pretty soon he'd pick the lock of Danny's front door to find him in a freakin' apron while Betty Crocker herself whipped up her _own_ eskimo pie- and _damned if it wasn't served up with a little extra whipped cream, if ya got his drift. _The whole scene would pale in comparison to one simmering, sidelong glance he shared with the divine human being he was immersed in at that very moment. He could never quite believe that God had blessed him with the mere existence of such a woman as Betty Rizzo on this earth, and yet here was the reality of her in his arms, melting there into the sacred earth beneath them.

Man, since when had he started thinkin' in prose? He made a mental note to run this by Danny later, whom he had a hunch might even understand firsthand. Geez, now he was thinkin' of his best friend while he was gettin' off his rocks! This crazy little thang called love really did have him all tangled up inside.

Then Rizzo moaned almost inaudibly and his knees gave in beneath him, the ache of his heart pulsing to the surface of him. It was moments like this when it pained him to know that he as deeply as he would bury himself inside her later on, he could never be wholly consumed.

The graveness of their passion was in eerie contrast to the idyllic blue skies and summer haze of laughter ringing throughout the carnival as if from faraway. Rizzo's impish little moans were muffled beneath the hungry mantle of his mouth, and really he knew she could not hear them herself, but they incapacitated his slightest ability to function. Making love to her would never be enough, so how did she expect him to survive the feel of her fevered sounds in his throat in the middle of a carnival?

Finally she said _God, Kenick_ against his ear and resumed a bland expression on her face as she pulled herself away. A shiver of ecstasy snaked its way through his soul, which felt suddenly barren in her absence. She disentangled herself with a relative ease he loved, admired, and envied in equal measures. But Kenickie's thoughts did not linger on the rough-edged coolness eminated by the one woman he knew and loved like the back of his hand. Rather his thoughts drifted with the clouds above them, impossibly high in the cerulean sky, as they parted in the distance.

There was a blue note of sadness in the idyllic scene buzzing around them. A bittersweet air of nostalgia wafted eerily between the the two of them as Rizzo adjusted her bright red tee with the word 'Riz' emblazoned almost illegibly above one perky, luscious breast. _His _luscious, perky breast on _his_ woman. Kenickie smiled down at her again and this time when he kissed her, his tongue drew something deeper than before in the well of her, stirring an almost primal need for the safety of his arms locked around her.

A cool breeze skittered in then like an omen from the outskirts of the carnival. It was the sort of wind that howled through early spring days just before the purply bruise of twillight settled over Los Angeles, but it seemed out of place here in the mid-afternoon sun. Rizzo had the sense that life was moving forward on the mysterious wings of a blustery wind, leaving these idyllic last days of high school behind too soon. The depths of her longed to seal something yet unnamed between herself and Kenickie, something formless and unknown that sent chills of terror coursing through her bones. When his tongue drove even more deeply than it had into what felt like the core of her, she braced her hands on his shoulders and felt herself arrive home.

"Kenick...Kenick. I don't think-"

"Whew, whew!" The sound of her voice was interrupted suddenly by whistle signaling the entrance of a tall, modelesque figure clad in a second skin of black leather. Kenickie noted something different about the girl right away, an uncanny hidden strength and wholesomeness reflected in her clear blue eyes. Oddly, the stranger's eyes locked onto his in a funny way for a second before surveying her audience. As if Kenickie's thoughts about the girl were echoed by the rest of the crowd, a path was immediately cleared for her in the green grass, leading somewhere new.

The girl blinked demurely, tossed her cigarette to the ground, and glanced skittishly around her until Kenickie noticed Jan gesturing wildly- toward the girl?- out of the corner of his eye. Just what the hell was going on here? The tall, blue-eyed sip of whiskey finished the long, drawn-out ordeal with the smoke- who in the world didn't know how to put out a cigarette?- and paused before the wake of the crowd. The mass of hyped up teenagers on the brink of the rest of their lives seemed to hold its breath for the blonde's next move. She smiled again and sauntered almost daintily toward...Danny?

"Sandy!" The unmistakable, dumbfounded sound of Danny Zuko's voice blasted through the racuous stir of the crowd. My God, could it be- no freakin' way! But Kenickie would bet his life on it. The wide-eyed girl he had grown to know and love so well and this kittenish, damned _sexy_ thang in front of him...well, they belonged to two separate worlds which he simply could not reconcile. And yet, here she was, unveiled before him- before all of them- in a new and rather alarming way. Kenickie almost expected the familiar breathy reply of "Denny?" to ring out in a certain infamous Aussie accent, but Sandy merely cocked her head to one side. "Tell me about it, _stud_."

Rizzo had originally planned on staying at the carnival to the bitter end with all the rest of the Rydell troopers who had graduated with her today. But the truth was she needed a few moments alone before the big bash at Danny's place that night. It was _very _rare that she felt any semblance of spirited unity or camaraderie to the class of '56 as a whole, as she had always felt significantly older than her years. Today, however, the white veil of summer heat peeled back to uncover a raw sense of joy and fevered nostalgia in the picture perfect afternoon. For the first and last time in the history of her high school career, Rizzo had felt a true sense of unity and belonging to the general spirit of the student body as they said their bittersweet goodbyes. Even Patty Simcox had left her dumb brute of a jockstrap boyfriend to find his own way out of the cotton candy stands so she could come (not so subtly) congratulate Rizzo on "the good news".

Okay, so the poor hyped-up chick's sentiment was not exactly delivered with the utmost tact, and the Rizzo of just yesterday probably would've shoved her frilly little panties in a knot over it. But today was distinctly different from any day that had passed her by in previous times at Rydell. Today she stood at the threshold between her childhood and the looming unknown of her adult years, and all the good or bad they would bring. She wondered briefly if the years would rise like the sun or fall like rain over the ones that had already passed. The cerulean sky seemed to stretch for years over the fragile dome of her life, and Rizzo had the sudden urge to turn on her heel and go back home to Kenickie.

The very notion of it warred inside her with the majority of who she was- a tough shell of a girl who learned a long time ago how to live for herself and not another damn soul. Rizzo had the idea that her bones were too thin somehow to hold the depths of this last, awakening day of life as she knew it. Man, where was Sandy when you needed her? Oh, yeah, that's right, Rizzo thought with a wry smile. She was still trampsing around the campus at Rydell in her red stilettos, trying on her new vampish persona for size. Ha! Rizzo could run circles around the girl in five-inch heels, and Sandy should try lighting a cigarette on her man's arm for a thrill- that'd be a sight if there ever was one, Sandy exploring her less than demure side with cigarettes and Danny's skin. As if! So the Aussie broad would probably have a canary if she ever knew what Rizzo got up to in the bedroom. But when it came to unexpected emotions welling to the blue sky surface of the day, Sandy was undeniably the one to call. Rizzo was a virgin to this sort of thing, no pun intended.

All at once an idea took her by storm. It was one of those cloudbursts of impulse she was infamously prone to, but it didn't seem like such a bad idea to stop by Danny's place early. What could be the harm? He was probably still gettin' off his rocks at Rydell, chasin' the heels of his new and naughtily improved Sandra Dee like the little pussy he was sometimes. The thought made her smile, and her nude-colored stilettos traced a different path down the back streets leading away from Rydell High.

Strangely, a full glass of lemonade sat unsipped on the wooden porch in front of Danny's modest cape cod. Rizzo felt like some kind of voyeur or a peeping Tom as she peered behind the white picket fence to the backyard, relishing the fact that the old hammock from last year still hung from the two oldest palms in the neighborhood. She felt an unexpected thrill of warmth flush through her veins at the memory of herself pinned under Danny on that hammock. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, maybe even a childhood ago...oh, fuck it, what was _with _her today? It wasn't as if she still felt like a defective typewriter; she had woken up the day to a familiar red stain on her panties and boy, it was like a reunion with a cherished old friend from her youth!

Rizzo had never been so happy in all her life as when she learned her youth had not, in fact, dissipated like ashes to dust from beneath her. At least not yet. She hadn't wanted to spoil the day- bright lights, teary goodbyes, and all that other wishy washy bullshit the carnival was supposedly about- but the truth was, a part of her had recently steeled itself away from Kenickie. Sure, yeah, when he made out with her as if she was the only woman on the planet it felt great. What woman could resist a man who saw only her in a colorful crowd of scantily clad women prepared to give it away for free in leu of their last day in prison?

But what Kenickie had failed to understand was that the days she'd spent away from him had been surreality for her, a real nightmare in the flesh and blood. She hadn't told a soul other than Marty- and in turn the entire school- about her skipped period. Her father was a hard working man of few words who spent most of his life scrapping metal at the dump so that her miniscule family could eat. What on earth would he say if he knew his only daughter was possibly pregnant, and with some greaser's unborn child to boot? Probably nothing, and that was the truth. Her father was a kind but stoic man who would quite possibly feel so awkward at the mere notion of his daughter having sex- let alone unprotected, _unmarried _sex- that words would elude him altogether for the next couple of years.

It was times like these when Betty Rizzo wished she had a mother, but when the old tide of her sadness welled up dangerously inside of her, she told herself her mother's abandonment of her at the tender age of five was ancient history. Day after day leaked by without a trace of her period, and she stopped taking calls from the Pink Ladies one by one. Had Kenickie even bothered to take note of that fact that she had holed herself away from the closest people there had ever been to family in her life upon finding out her life might be forever changed? Had he seen through her steely expression that she was infected by fear? There had been a sickness in the hazy, idyllic last days of high school, supposedly the most memorable of their lives; Rizzo felt the days slipping away from her like the last wild streaks of mandarin sun over a hot summer night.

But within her there had been a cold gray tomb of fear- and a bottomless well of unshed tears that simply would not spill over. No matter how great a relief it would have been to feel them leak one by one onto the flimsly sleeve of one of Kenickie's blue T-shirts, absorbed into the whole of him. To cry in front of him would the very worst thing she could do, but Rizzo was still plagued with the alien longing to be cleansed back to herself by his fumbling warmth, his bottomless love of her. His passionate devouring of each hidden corner or crevice of her-

"Hey, Riz, what the heck are you doin' here?"

"Denny? Is that you?" Rizzo breathed sarcastically, sprinting toward him at an impressive pace, considering the height of her own stilettos.

"Oh, bite the weenie, Riz", he said and walked over to punch her lightly on the shoulder. His friendly, almost man-to-man camaderie with her had long ceased to dig under her skin and incite her rage. But for some reason the old anger bloomed wildly once more from the ground beneath her, directed at Danny in his studded black cut-off shirt.

It was funny, she mused as she smiled up at him. The rich California soil they stood upon now was the same soil their lives and innocence had been bloomed from- that is, if she ever had any.

"We've been over this, Zuko. With relish", she said, tongue in cheek.

"Ahhh, it's good to know some things never change", Danny sighed. Was it just her imagination doing overtime because it was the last day of life as they all knew it, or was there a shadowy note of wistfulness in Danny's voice?

"What's up, Zuk? You know you can let me in on it if somethin's goin' on."

"Well, this is a first", Danny sneered mockingly. "Well, in a while, I mean."

He bit back his words as soon as they escaped his lips and stained the tentative space between them. It seemed like he was always doing that these days, fumbling out long strings of practically incoherent sentences and then taking them back so no one laughed or got their feelings hurt. Well, maybe it was time to start looking out for Danny for once in his life.

Rizzo said nothing, simply leveled him with one of those sort of frightening, laser-eyed looks that stared blankly through his soul. Her uncommonly doleful, lovely eyes were steely as they looked him over, seeing too much.

Danny had an uneasy feeling as she plopped himself down onto the porch, gesturing for her to do the same. She stretched like a cat, a bland expression on her elfin features, and slid ever so slowly in place beside him. The old familiar movement stirred a knee jerk reaction of primal wanting inside of him, and he reminded sternly that he soft, budding love he'd felt with Sandy had been the one to unravel him from a hard-nosed greaser into his true, loving self. Sandy had been the one to heal over the gaps in his life from the moment his father left his family to the bitter end with Rizzo, with whom his relationship had since settled into a shadow of their old friendship.

It wasn't really Rizzo's fault she had cheated on him with Crater Face in a drunken stupor the night they all found out Kenickie had scored with Cha Cha Digregorio for the first time, Danny reasoned now. Everyone knew she was possessed of zero self-control, and the wild streak in her probably stemmed from the fact that she had grown up alongside a practically mute father who was kind enough, but had never really raised her in earnest. And whether or not they truly fit together, Danny could admit now that he'd truly cared for Rizzo and had been wildly, fiendishly attracted to her. But then, wasn't every member of the male species, including every last one of the T-birds?

But he had known deep in his gut that it was Kenickie she belonged with, whether Rizzo knew it yet herself at the time or not. He had let her go without much of a fight when word came around that she'd made it loudly with Crater Face at the drive-in next to big mouth Patty Simcox and her nerdy little man puppet, Eugene Felsnick.

Sandy Olssen had been the woman to change his heart. For all the fights she put up when it came to gettin' off his rocks, she had been brave and unhesitant when it came to letting him peel back the lily white petals of her soul to reveal the core of her within. It certainly hadn't been Rizzo writhing beneath him in the hammock last year, though it caused him immeasurable discomfort to think that just weeks ago he'd laid Sandy down delicately on the very same one. God, he loved Sandy with all his heart and soul, every fiber of who he was. And yet it had never been enough, had it? He could admit that his fragile ego caused them more than their fair share of the troubles they had been through. But like torn pieces of a quilt they had sewn themselves back together time and again- and these days he even let her serve up Kenickie her own rendition of an Eskimo pie _with a knife._

. He wondered now if that had been a mistake, but the sad fact of the matter was she seemed to have him pinned as some kind of pervert who was just tryin' to get his rocks off with her. And her arrogant, uptight attitude about the T-birds and nearly every other area of his life aside from her was carving out a rift between them that saddened him beyond anything he'd ever felt before. Why couldn't he, Danny Zuko, ever be enough for anyone- even the love of his life whom he felt had been designed by God to fit his own essence?

"So, Riz, what brings you round this way so early? And isn't Kenickie still hangin' around the carnival? I have to say, Riz, I was relieved to see you two back together. I mean, I was more than relieved. You shoulda seen the condition he was in without you. Things weren't lookin' real good, I'll tell ya that much."

Danny pulled out a cigarette from the pocket of his skin tight black jeans and took a puff. He started to offer Rizzo one but she beat him to it, snagging one from the pocket of her shirt, lighting up, and taking a deep drag from her sultry red lips. She sighed deeply but a bland expression muted her porcelain features as always, and her expression was unreadable. He couldn't stop his gaze from lingering a beat too long on her slender, exposed neck when she stretched. To his utter shame she caught his gaze and smirked, catlike, but then she brushed off the slip on Danny's part with a curt shrug of her shoulders.

"Eh, he shoulda tried my phone more than a few measly times."

"Riz. We both know he wouldn't have gotten an answer."

Her tendency to evade the heart of matters was yet another reason why a part of Danny had been relieved when he'd let her go. True to form, she'd shrugged her shoulders as if to say _Your loss, Zuko-_and proceeded to spread a rumor that he'd banged Patty Simcox in the mens' bathroom at the Frosty Palace. Patty, of course, hadn't minded in the least, and Danny slapped all the T-birds fives under the facade that it didn't hurt him when people he trusted did underhanded things. But his strange, tapering end with Rizzo had scarred him more deeply inside than anyone had ever guessed. And now here she was, a tantalizing image from his long forgotten past, all long legs and comfortingly true, earthy nature. It was rare to find in women these days.

Rizzo was silent for a long time. Slowly, she said at last, "Ya know, you're probably right, Zuk. If Kenickie had called I wouldn'ta picked up. But it wasn't for lack of tryin', you know?"

When Danny looked at her skeptically she shook her head and went on. "No, really, Zuko, cut your judgemental crap and listen for a change. Maybe if ya did that more often with Sandy, she wouldn't be traipsing around the carnival, ogling my man."

Rizzo's and Danny's mouths gaped open in unison at that. "Look, Zuk, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"No, Riz. If there's one thing I could always count on you for, it's the truth. Even if it's gonna hurt. Now, listen. Is there somethin' I should know about Sandy and Kenickie? Not on his end, of course", Danny amended quickly, and the stormy gaze in Rizzo's eyes quieted back to their usual feigned apathy.

"Look, Danny. If I know Sandy- and sadly enough, I think I finally do- what Sandy's looking for has nothing to do with Kenick and everything to do with you. Stop treating her like a gentle flower just because she is one, Danny. I can't believe I'm saying this about the poster girl for the Kangaroo Bop, but even Sandy has a side deep down that wants to be treated like a woman...not a made-for-life dream you conjured up as a kid and now you're expectin' her to fit the mold."

"What're ya sayin', Riz? That I don't make her feel sexy enough? Because I do, really! I even took her to the drive in a few weeks ago, went in slowly for her tit, and then jumped on her when she noticed! Why would I do that if she didn't get off my rocks? I thought the problem was she wanted respect! Oh, man, I can't believe I'm having this conversation right now. With anyone, never mind you."

"Well, I think I'm the perfect one for you to be having this conversation with."

Danny snorted and took a drag of his cigarette. "You would."

"Ya know, Danny, it's been a long time since we've been together. But ya gotta know that if you ever...if you ever need to talk or just get somethin' off your chest, I'm here."

One of Danny's slow-spreading, signture smiles lit up his classically handsome face from within. "So I see, Riz. So I see."

Rizzo barked out a laugh. "Yeah. And while you're on the topic of Sandy, what she needs is not a horny teenager who can't keep his rocks to himself, no pun intended. I guarentee ya she's lookin' for something else, a more refined experience from you that combines passion with love, adventure with tenderness."

Danny's eyes grew so large in his head Rizzo thought they might pop out of the sockets. She bristled, steeling herself for a nasty, brooding remark about her not knowing love from an automobile...or some other retarded comment only Danny was bright-eyed and cute enough to get away with.

To her surprise and her rising discomfort, Danny didn't speak for a long time. When he did, his voice was hoarse and his gaze lingered on his feet. "I...I had no idea you were so well versed in the ways of romance."

"Yeah, well, love is a many splendored thing", she muttered, then added quietly, "And most people don't. Know about my softer side, I mean."

There was something about the way she bit her lip then that reminded him of the raggedy child he once knew, a little girl with otherwordly hazel eyes that misted over often with a lost quality he could not abide, even all those years back. Yes, there was something inheritly vulnerable about her in that instant that made him want to wrap up her safe in his strong embrace.

"Rizzo", he whispered into the suddenly cool space between them. A late afternoon breeze ghosted through the sunny neighborhood where Danny had lived all his life. All at once the familiar scene faded from him like a nostalgic painting of another place and time.

"What's up, Zuk?" she uttered, but her voice was a whisper and her lips hovered dangerously close to his. Danny knew that if he pressed his honeyed lips to her supple crimson pout, it would mark the end of life as he knew it far more deeply than graduation ever could. It was their last day of high school and they were all a little vulnerable, suspended somewhere in that purgatorial space in time that wafted between the past and future.

The afternoon was misted over with a sense of nostalgia and Rizzo had the feeing that her feet were no longer anchored to the ground. Either that, or the ground had shifted beneath her without her noticing. Though it was a bright afternoon, it seemed to her that only a slick sheat of rain poured roughly down between Danny and her on the familiar site of his old porch.

The front yard was shaded somewhat by an umbrella of old birch trees surrounding the rusty old swing set. Danny's younger sister hadn't used it since she and Zuko were freshman in high school; where on earth did the time go?

Rizzo had always found the unfurling of summer in California to be a dreamlike scene, a paradise of sorts in her own backyard; the turn of the seasons bloomed a celestial garden of jasmine and bouganvillea in the earth, and a honeyed sweetness coated the balmy air. Lately, however, the heavenly garden of summer bloomed from dark, too tender places in the ground. Gossamer patches of leaf-filtered light from the sun illuminated delicate patches of the earth- almost imperceptible undercurrents of humanity normally only drawn to the surface by the dark side of the moon. Well, it seemed Rizzo had managed to conjure her dark side of the moon to light...again. She was a good girl at heart, but in her weakness she could be so preversely, deliciously bad...

The sectors of the earth beneath her stiletto-clad feet felt inheritly violated, molested. She was overcome by an urge to flip her own world upside down sheerly for the wreck of it. There was but a thin, veiny white veil between heaven and sin in this world...and between it were shades of midnight, her shadow self. There was an underbelly of who she was was and streaks of it combed the earth now like fire as she leaned ever so slightly into her old flame.

Rizzo truly could not believe she was about to turn her world upside down for Danny, and just when the shattered shards of it had pieced themselves tentatively together again. Sometimes Rizzo had the feeling that she herself was made of broken glass, translucent and predictable as reflections in a stained glass mirror. Deep blue eaves of melancholy twisted deep beneath the ground and tangled her in a gossamer web of lies, laced with confusion. She leaned closer still to Danny, inhaled his familiar scent and allowed herself to be blanketed by the essence of a simpler place and time.

"Hey, Riz. Riz. You don't wanna do this to Kenickie, okay? He'll be devastated. I'll never be able to pry him off my couch again. And Sandy...oh, Sandy."

Danny broke the dark spell of the moment and cupped Rizzo's chin in his rough palms. She was suprised to feel that his hands were trembling, as she was many things but not a fool. She knew that a man like Danny Zuko was cut from a different cloth than a girl like her. He simply didn't have it in him to feel for Rizzo the way he felt for Sandy; their two words would never be one, and the truth was that had suited her just fine since Kenickie had taken her by storm and transformed her life with an unexpected sweetness.

Now, there was a man who was cut from the same cloth as her. Sometimes Rizzo felt as though they were too similiar at times, branches of the same old tree that had been rooted in the ground as one since before time. She loved him in a terrifying, all-encompassing way that chilled her very bones at the memory of it. She loved him with the whole of who she was...she came home in this world to him each time he pressed her safely against the flimsy blue fabric of his trusty old T-shirt. In fact, was there anything she wouldn't do to be wearing nothing but that blue T-shirt right now as he moaned her first name feverishly into the dark?

Rizzo was struck by a lightning bolt of realization that it was not so much Danny she was clinging to through the raging, forward motion of the storm, the changing times. What she had subconsciously, foolishly hoped to reclaim here was her innocence.

"Danny", she said slowly. "Let go of my chin. You don't want to do this to Sandy, either. You'll never forgive yourself, and it'll be on my tab for the rest of my damn life. Get a hold of yourself." She shoved his hand forcefully from his chin, frustrated with herself more than with him.

At that moment the shadow-filtered sun shifted upon her face, chasing the quirk of her lips the way it had a lifetime ago, when they were children and he still called her Betty. He realized in that moment that his love for her had shifted long ago as well into a kindred friendship. Theirs was the sort of bond one cherished for a lifetime with a friend who had become a sister. They had roots in the ground that he hoped would never be uprooted, but those roots had changed beneath his feet over the years when he wasn't looking.

"Shit, Riz, you're right. I do wanna, um, ask you somethin' though. Something' personal, so feel free to tell me to go flog my log if I'm askin' too much. But Riz...does Kenickie make you feel beautiful?"

Rizzo didn't have to consider his question from a distance the way she calculated the answers to most things. The word _yes s_lipped from her mouth automatically. For whatever reason, Kenickie had a well of unconditional love in him for her that stripped her bare, drawing to the surface the whole of who she was. And yes, when he was with her she felt beautiful for once in her life. But did he, in fact, think she was beautiful? Or did he simply make her feel that way because it was something he was conciously making the effort to do, reflect the truth of who she was back in his pale blue eyes?

"He makes me feel beautiful because...well, because he loves me, I suppose. I see myself in his eyes the way I'm guessin' he seems me. The trouble is, I just can't believe it, ya know? No one finds the love of her life in her last year of high school, least of all me."

A wistful smile ghosted over the corners of Danny's full mouth. "It always happens to the ones who least expect it.

"That's just the way the world turns, I guess."

"That's a load of horse shit and you know it, Zuko. Much as it sickens me to say it, you and good ol' Sandra Dee are perfect for each other. I see a soul mate in her for you. Seriously, Danny. It's like one of you was made to fit the other...I ain't never seen anything like it. And Danny, uh...not for nothin', but I'm sorry if I tried to tear it apart at the beginning of the year. I didn't understand her and I certainly didn't think you would. I thought it was a summer fling, the kind that don't mean a thing and then ya move on with your life. Now I see there was a reason the poor thing was so hopelessly devoted in Frenchy's backyard while I was gettin' knocked up by Kenickie in the backseat of his that tin can you guys fixed up into a real pussy wagon."

"Yeah", Danny scoffed. "More like a sin wagon if ya ask her."

Rizzo blinked, confused. "What the hell are ya talkin' about, Zuko?"

"That's what she called it the night you skipped a period and she left me stranded at the drive-in. I tried to kiss her...well, okay, I tried a little more than that, but it's been a year now since I first laid eyes on her! You'd think she'd have at least some trust in who I am as a person to know I'd never hurt her."

"Well, clearly she's got a conflict wagin' war within herself...I know it's hard to believe, Danny, but not everything is about you and that handsome little dimple in your chin."

"Oh, bite the weenie, Riz. And don't say 'With relish'. Look, seriously. I don't know what went wrong between Sandy and me. I love her to ends of the earth, I even lettered in track for her, but it's like she lives in this lofty place up in the sky and won't come down to meet me halfway. I guess...I guess today when I almost kissed you, it was for two reasons. One, of course, was the obvious. You're sexy as hell and I missed the warm, simple feel of you pressed up against me. And, ya know, I missed never having to wonder where I stand. Going through hoops and mazes just to have a settled life with the girl I love."

"Aw, Danny, don't flatter me, alright?" Rizzo blushed and steeled her gaze to the ground for a moment before looking up. "I miss ya, too, hun, but I think you're really right. I'm in love with Kenickie now, and much as it don't sound real to say it, it's for better or worse. But I...I wanted to be with you, too, just now. There's something you and Sandy have that I never did, and it's probably the reason I hated her with such a deep, real passion for the first half of the year- before she grew on us all somehow. And what you guys have that I don't is...oh, never mind."

"Come on, Riz", Danny spoke softly, his lips hovering close to her ear and sending small nostalgic shivers down her spine. "If there's one thing I wouldn't expect from you, it's a coward."

"Hey, I'm no coward. It's just...this shit ain't easy to talk about, ya know? Even to you. See, Sandy's got this girl thing goin' for her. She's pretty in this soft way that I never was; her feminine side comes naturally to her and she gives it easily to you. Me and Kenickie are pretty rough around the edges, and most times those are the sides that we give each other, too. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm no Betty Crocker and I don't have some white picket fence dream of slaving after a whole slough of kids while Kenick gets drunk down at the dirby. But I do feel and I do cry. And I guess I'd like it if that part of me could...if it could flow like a river through me to him, but it gets stuck somewhere from point A to point B. And I feel safe with you, Danny. In my subconcious I thought you were the only one whose guard was down enough to bring out the side of me that's more than just a fast girl in the back of a fast car."

"Rizzo...Rizzo, of course you're more than that. You were everything to me once. Don't ever say that."

He leaned in close to her once more for the ghost of a moment until their reverie was broken by the familar, pitchy sound of an Austrailian accent piercing the idyllic sunny day.

"Denny? Denny, how could you?"

Danny dropped his gaze and seemed electrified as be bolted up from the porch, leaving Rizzo behind him in a haze of sunlight and dirt. "Sandy, wait! We were just sayin' how much you mean to me!"

"Meant something to you? You're a fake and a phony and I wish I never laid eyes on you!"

Sandy had made her way half way down Danny's street- an impressive feat for her first time in stilettos, never mind backless ones- with Rizzo at her heels before she collapsed in a heap on the side of the road. "Oh, Rizzo, how could you? I know we haven't been the best of friends, but I always...made an effort and...you had to have known how much I love him..."

Sandy broke down in full, heaving sobs now on the side of the road and Rizzo muttered something about being seen in public this way before she sat down beside her newest friend, brushing the dirt from her pink shorts.

"Sandy, honey, nothin was happenin' between Danny and me. We were just reminiscing about the past, that's all. Sometimes I wish I could go back to a place much simpler than this, don't you? That's what me bein' so close to Danny just now was about. He's living proof of a simpler place and time, but nothin' more than that. I'm sorry if I got a little too close there, but I swear to ya we had just finished sayin' how we'd never do anything to jeaopardize what Danny had with you. And, well, what I have with Kenickie."

The pale, delicate skin of Rizzo's cheeks flushed the color of a crimson sunset, and Sandy blushed, too.

"Rizzo...there's something I've got to tell you."

Rizzo's eyes flashed momentarily, but then a familiar blandness settled over her features as she asked, "What, Sandy?"

"Well...I suppose you weren't the only one who had a weak moment or felt confused. Why, just last week when you were mad at Kenickie, I went over to his place and confessedf to him I was feeling torn between my feelings for Danny and my budding ones for him."

"What?" Rizzo stood up and nearly slapped the blubbering fool across the face- she could have killed her right there with her bare hands- but then a terrible thought set her back down on the shimmering the asphalt as quickly as she'd gotten up. "So _that'_s why he's always looking at you that way and defending you when I make fun of you! That's why the fuck he got all pissy with me when I told you maybe we should invent the kangaroo bop! I'll kill him, I'll do it right now, Sandy, I swear! Tell me where your little knight in shining armor is or it's over _your _dead body! And believe me, his is still to come so don't think you're doin' him any prissy little favors!"

"Rizzo, no! Nothing happened between us at all...he hugged me rather awkwardly and looked at me like I was a little or sister or something. And it turned out one visit was all I needed to figure out what I was missing in my life. Rizzo...Rizzo, calm down and listen to me, will you? The way you're acting right now is frightening, even for you."

Rizzo realized she was kicking the curb repeatedly as though it was really Kenickie's head she was bashing in, then fell in a heap beside Sandy at oce. All those shattered pieces of her that had been so tentatively reassembled began crumbling once more in the dirt. She paused and caught her breath. This was not the Rizzo she knew herself to be; these random, uncontrollable emotions Kenickie pulled out of her were the first reason she had first been paralyzed with fear that maybe she was pregnant. She swallowed hard and stared out into the distance."You sure he didn't lay a hand on you?"

"I'm positive, Rizzo! His nerves were still in a bunch over his fight with you, honest. He didn't look like himself at all and must have lost ten pounds. Danny and everyone were worried about him, including me. Listen, Rizzo, I would never do anything to hurt you. I merely saw something in you and Kenickie that wasn't quite tangible in my relationship with Danny. The two of you embodied this dream I have of giving myself up to the peaks and the valleys of romance without being so afraid or pushing the one that I want away. And there was something else...something rather embarassing."

Sandy shielded her face demurely from the sun and Rizzo listened with an uncharacteristic genuinity. Sandy thought that her mesmorizing hazel eyes looked almost as though they were made of glass. They had shattered only on the inside, and Sandy was overcome with a sudden bizarre yearning to reach out and protect the rough-edged girl who had made her life a living hell that year. My God, she had been twisted with sin lately! How could she ever look at herself in the mirror again and see the pure old Sandra Dee staring back at her? And how could she find the words to let Rizzo know she had been acting especially lofty in the moral department as of late because her image in the mirror was also cracked down the center?

"Well, I'm waiting. I don't got all day, Sandra Dee."

The subtle hint of a flirtation flickered behind the storm of Rizzo's voice and lingered in her tongue-in-cheek drawl, pulling on the strings of something forbidden inside of Sandy. Something more sinful even than her thoughts about Danny in that...sin wagon he tried to have his way with her in just two weeks ago. The innocence of that girl- that commondrum high school routine- seemed lifetimes away now. Those days were a thread that had frayed throughher fingertips, and they were all she wished for when she slammed her eyes shut.

"Well, you see, I've always been the sort of girl to hide from anything so raw and real as...sexuality." Sandy swallowed. "And you...well, you seem to live so easily in your skin."

"Aw, Sandy. You really are as innocent as you seem, ain't you? If you only knew, hon...if you only knew."

Sandy turned her signature wide-eyed gaze on Rizzo and hiccuped. "Why, what do you mean, Riz?"

Rizzo rolled her incandescent eyes and that single movement was the essence of her; it captured Sandy in a spell that could could not be broken. Sandy didn't know why, but her mind felt laced with confusion and she had the sense that she was crossing over a forbidden threshold by confiding her insecurities to Rizzo. She had the vision in her mind of her past as a smooth, golden-green landscape...and now those smooth, unvarnished miles would be forever altered, but she was powerless to stop it. In fact, powerlessness had been quite a recurrent theme in Sandy's life, but would Rizzo even know there was any such thing?

The two of them were sadly cut from different cloths. Every bored, languid move Rizzo made since the beginning of the year had oozed a sultry, understated sex appeal to Sandy since the first day she laid eyes on the terrifying leader of the Pink Ladies. Riz had a jaded air of cynicism about her that wasn't common for people of her age, and Sandy had always told herself the girl piqued her morbid curiosity simply because she was the antithesis to everything Sandy herself believed to be right and true. But now she watched as Rizzo chewed heavily on her full bottom lip and then spat her cigarette onto the ground. Could it be there was another, hidden reason she was mesmorized by the other woman's alternating curt roughness and kittenish, sensual body language? Shadows fell over Rizzo's face and flickered there in the odd, leaf-filtered light from the sun, from Rizzo's childhood.

"Look, Sandy", Rizzo spoke at last, fixing her with a fiery gaze. "Sometimes it's best not to talk everything to death. Let's just say that you're in love with Danny and I uh, really care for Kenickie. But we're embarking on the cusp of the journey of the rest of our lives. I never really thought of myself as someone who didn't know what I needed to know to get by. But at a time like this, it would be a little strange if we didn't all have a little something to learn from each other. Am I wrong?"

Sandy gulped hard, a lump forming in her throat and a thin sheet of sweat breaking out on her skin. She told herself it was the constricting leather pants and the overwhelming artificial fragrance of hair spray in her matted curls. "Yes, Rizzo. You're right."

Had the girl ever been wrong? And if she had, did Sandy honestly have the balls to say it out loud? Had Rizzo erred in her original judgement that Sandy was a real live Sandra Dee, made of little more than storybook innocence and a placid temperment?

Rizzo stood at once and brushed the dirt off her shorts again in one swift, curt motion. Sandy had to tear her eyes painfully from the other woman's petite, tiny- waisted form, which was accentuated in pale pink short shorts and one of her usual no-nonsense collared tees. Upon a closer look Sandy noticed that there was something different about Rizzo today..and it was more than the almost illegible embrioderment of the word "Riz" spelled out adorably above her right breast. She wore a thin, simple string of red pearls around her neck and her cheeks were flushed with something pretty and alive that had not been there in any pronounced way before. Sandy smiled in spite of herself and then leaned over at once, afraid for a terrible moment that she might be sick. She was just so awfully mixed up inside.

"Oh, no, you don't, Sandy. Not this time. Frenchy's dad would have had a coniption that night at her place if you'd gotten puke all over their newly done bathroom."

And then Rizzo reached out over the invisible threshold they'd both been uncertain as to whether they would actually cross, taking Sandy's hand roughly in hers. Sandy hiccuped again and Rizzo smirked, rustling one petite hand through Sandy's hair before settling her hand back at in hers. Her bones felt surprisingly delicate and small.

"If you're gonna be sick, just do it already. I got ya, sweetie. Just don't toss your cookies on my new shirt. Frenchy had it made especially for me and if I get puke all over it she'll never believe my story about poor little Sandra Dee pregaming too hard before Danny's party."

But her eyes were not unkind as she peered earnestly into Sandy's face. They glinted mischieviously and then rested on Sandy's own eyes as if searching for the answer to a question there. But Sandy just grinned agreeably and Rizzo took her hand in hers once more, leading the way back to Danny's house. The party wasn't due to start for four more hours, but Danny's parents weren't home...and she had a hunch Kenickie might stop by and try to steal her away for some long overdue lovin'. If she knew her man- and she sure did- he had to be fiending by now.

Sure enough, Kenickie was stretched lazily across the entire front porch when the girls arrived back at Danny's house, hand in hand. His long limbs were tangled in a familiar way across the steps, and Rizzo's heart skipped at the unfathomable look that danced across his features in the pale sunlight. Her forever was unveiled to her in the golden framed perfection of this very moment.

Kenickie's eyes roved over the surreal flesh and blood fantasy before him."What the hell?" he muttured, only to catch Rizzo's eye as she lifted one slender finger to say _shhhhh_. Perplexed but also immensely relieved at the sight of her, Kenickie grinned crookedly then, flashing a mouthful of glistening white teeth. Adoration was woven thickly in his heavy-lidded gaze, and he stood up slowly to take her hands in his. "I missed you, my lady."

"Mmm...same here. We're gettin closer every time to moonlight and roses, huh, Kenick?"

Their lips locked almost automatically as Danny emerged from the house with a beer to find his dream come true- not Rizzo and Kenickie, gettin' off their rocks on his front porch- but Sandy, standing at his doorstep with tears in the two crystal lakes of her blue eyes. The love of Danny's life seemed exposed to him in a way she had not been before on the porch where they'd shared their second kiss. Her hips thrusted forward in an unconscious way, asthough she were being served up to him on a silver platter.

"Sandy!" he exclaimed for about the thousandth time that week.

"Danny...I've got to talk to you. In fact, I've got to talk to all of you guys."

Sandy's revelation was met only with the stillness of the cottony midafternoon...and the soft, throaty sound of Rizzo's moans, muffled as they were beneath Kenickie's animal grunts. His hands nearly pushed up the back of her shirt right there on Danny's porch, scavenging for skin to bruise with his insatiable mouth. "Riz, Riz", he mumbled. Exactly what kind of freakshow was this turning out to be?

Sandy decided it was past high time she asked herself- and them- that very question.

"Hey, guys! Guys! My woman's trying to speak, already! Do I have to bang another meter under your asses to tear you two apart so Sandy can talk, already?"

Disoriented, Rizzo and Kenickie disentangled themselves begrudgingly. Rizzo grimaced and Kenickie groaned, "What, man? I haven't had my girl in three weeks, would ya mind?"

"Actually, no". Sandy's voice severed the atmosphere like lightning, startling them all into silence. Danny's gaze was unreadable; it roved over her face as if truly taking her in for the first time.

"Well, you see, everyone, I was telling Rizzo on the way home how I've been feeling rather confused lately. There's a part of me I've been wanting to express, and I figured who better to share it with than my very best friends in the world? We all started out so separately, but we came together seamlessly in the end, like one great big patchwork quilt..."

"Oh, cut to the chase, would ya? You're makin' me sick and I ain't even PG." Rizzo rolled her eyes conspiritually at Kenickie, whose loving smile rained down on her like the home she never had. Danny's arm went protectively around Sandy and he nodded his gentle encouragement.

"What's the matter, sweetheart? You...you just don't look happy."

"Well, as I said before, there's a part of me I've been needing to explore. And I'm not happy right now. But I think I know a way I could be. Do you think you could help me, guys?"

Rizzo caught her eye and winked her support, taking Kenickie's hand posessively in hers. He looked vaguely confused but was led blindly by her as usual to the front door, Danny and Sandy on their heels.

Rizzo cleared her throat and at long last, her face broke out in a grin. "Alright, my friends. Whatdya say we go all go upstairs and _really_ go together?"


End file.
